The period from the 1940s to the 1950s saw the development of Indian termination policy in the United States, which was an effort to diminish the relationship between the federal government and Indian tribes, as well as to assimilate Native Americans into the majority of American society. Beginning in 1954, Congress enacted 46 new laws that terminated tribes across the country. One of these laws, titled the Western Oregon Indian Termination Act (also known as Public Law 588), impacted a total of 2,100 Indigenous people belonging to 61 tribes, affecting more individuals than any other act created for Indian termination.2 Through close analysis of this document, I aim intend to expose any biases or inaccuracies that it contains and thus evaluate
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Although written as a public federal document, and therefore intended for the general populace of the United States, the document’s contents are specifically directed toward the “communities of Indians located west of the Cascade Mountains in Oregon.” As with any official public record, the contents of the article are written with the intent of being of a neutral and informative point of view. It is necessary to additionally consider that there was and is a lack of diversity in members of the U.S. federal government, and therefore an understandable distance between officials and the tribal issues that they sought to address. Furthermore, the technical language in which the act is composed likely resulted in barriers of mutual understanding between the authors and the intended audience, indicating that the point of view reflects primarily the interests of only one …show more content…
Of course, as with any law enacted, its ramifications usually develop over time, and not always in a predictable fashion. Considering that a majority of congressional members did not have much knowledge on Indian values and way of life, they were not well equipped to anticipate the outcome of removing sovereignty from Indigenous tribes. To them, the act was an opportunity for positive growth through the Americanization of Native people. While U.S. officials may have had a broad, overarching scope of Indian affairs, they were not in a position to be acquainted with the belief systems and nuances of Native life, which undoubtedly allowed for bias to be present when compiling the
Although written as a public federal document, and therefore intended for the general populace of the United States, the document’s contents are specifically directed toward the “communities of Indians located west of the Cascade Mountains in Oregon.” As with any official public record, the contents of the article are written with the intent of being of a neutral and informative point of view. It is necessary to additionally consider that there was and is a lack of diversity in members of the U.S. federal government, and therefore an understandable distance between officials and the tribal issues that they sought to address. Furthermore, the technical language in which the act is composed likely resulted in barriers of mutual understanding between the authors and the intended audience, indicating that the point of view reflects primarily the interests of only one …show more content…
Of course, as with any law enacted, its ramifications usually develop over time, and not always in a predictable fashion. Considering that a majority of congressional members did not have much knowledge on Indian values and way of life, they were not well equipped to anticipate the outcome of removing sovereignty from Indigenous tribes. To them, the act was an opportunity for positive growth through the Americanization of Native people. While U.S. officials may have had a broad, overarching scope of Indian affairs, they were not in a position to be acquainted with the belief systems and nuances of Native life, which undoubtedly allowed for bias to be present when compiling the